Breaking With Routine
by Emerald Embers
Summary: Wherein Cloud is a dork and Tifa spittakes. Cloud/Tifa, Advent Children universe.


**Title**: Breaking With Routine

**Rating**: PG-12 for het.

**Fandom**: Final Fantasy 7: Advent Children (but you wouldn't really need to see the movie to understand anything other than who Denzel is)

**Pairing**: Cloud/Tifa

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One of the worst things to come out of any crisis had to be the mornings several days after the event in question. The first few days were always fine and dandy, celebrations and the joy of surviving enough to make the days pass by, but when life started settle back into routine, there was a long period that felt_ entirely_ alien, as if normality was just something painted on to cover that bad things had happened and could happen again.

It drove Cloud up the wall quite frequently, but he had to admit mornings after were a hell of a lot easier with Tifa's bacon sandwiches to wake you up. Normally she wasn't the world's best cook, but anything meat and bread based was her 'speciality'. You couldn't go wrong with meat, apparently. You just kept heating the damn stuff until it stopped bleeding.

Tifa's idea of heating meat until it stopped bleeding usually involved partial incineration, but as long as she wasn't cooking chicken, that really wasn't a bad thing at all.

"You know, this isn't half bad," Cloud tried out as a compliment in response to the slightly questionable breakfast juice she had placed alongside the much happier sight of the regulation bacon sandwich.

"Thank you for the vote of confidence," she replied with a smirk as she broke her chocobo egg in two, placing the half she wasn't planning on eating yet shell side up on a second plate before picking up her cup of coffee. It wasn't that she favoured herself over Cloud when it came to drinks; just that the blond reacted poorly to caffeine. Very poorly. On the fateful day when Cid finally got a cup of tea into the young man's digestive system, she and the pilot virtually had to pin Cloud down to stop him climbing local wreckage.

Cloud stared fixedly at the breakfast table, wondering what he should say to break the silence he was becoming decidedly uncomfortable with. "So," he began at last, quietly, before looking up at Tifa. "Do you think we should get married?"

Even mako-reflexes couldn't raise his hand in time to stop the brunette's coffee spraying across his face.

_"God_, Cloud! Warn me in future before you spring a question like that!" Cloud's mild suffering from sprayed coffee was nothing compared to the injuries Tifa's low-cut top afforded her, and for a mad few seconds he contemplated wiping the coffee from her cleavage himself.

"Sorry, I just thought it'd be better for the orphans if we were like real parents, wouldn't it?"

Tifa stared Cloud down in between making use of the tablecloth. "You're serious about this, aren't you?"

Intimidated by the stare and suddenly convinced that breathing had probably been a bad idea when he woke up that morning, Cloud responded with a shrug.

"No, Cloud, we shouldn't get married."

"Oh. Alright."

"What possessed you to ask? Cid's thing with Shera?"

Cloud twisted a piece of the tablecloth between his fingers into a small peak, shook his head. "I thought we probably should... you know..." He swallowed and blushed slightly. "It would be a good way to get, um, involved."

"No, getting involved would be a good way to get involved, not walking down the aisle." Tifa grinned before sidling around the table. "Unless this is all a ploy to get in my pants."

Previously, Cloud had only thought Vincent capable of saying nothing with an exclamation point, but he suddenly discovered he too shared the unusual ability.

"I wouldn't complain if you were. It's about time." Her smile faltered a little and she sat back, asking, "Unless I'm misinterpret-"

Cloud's lunge was mistimed and off-angle, but somehow between knocking over a chair and landing on the floor with an "Oof", he managed to actually get his lips to meet Tifa's. Briefly, yes. Painful, most definitely. But these niggling issues were balanced out pretty effectively by the fact it had left him lying on top of a panting, kiss-bruised Tifa, and it didn't look like she particularly objected.

"Hi," she said after a moment's pause. Cloud realised he'd stared at her silently long enough that it was probably getting creepy. He hadn't meant to, it was just... she really _was_ beautiful, and as familiar as that was, he'd never noticed how amazing she smelt before. He didn't know if it was perfume or cooking or just_ her_ but she reminded him of spice drawers, strange powders with stranger names that could only be Wutaian, warm and comforting like cloves.

Hi. He opted to punctuate the end of the sentence with a second kiss, and lost the function of counting roughly around the fourth, or whenever it was that she decided she could handle more of his weight against her and pulled him close with a firm grip of his ass.

.

Denzel shut the kitchen door as quietly as possible, blushing bright red, and reddened further when he found himself face to face with a hands-on-hips Marlene who looked as if she had very important things to do that he was somehow interfering with. "Well?"

"Er, Cloud and Tifa are... um... play-fighting."

The little girl rolled her eyes. "I'm not _stupid_. Are they making babies?"

Denzel s face would have reddened further, were it not for the fact all his spare blood appeared to have been sent to his cheeks already. "Um..."

"Good," Marlene decided, looking at the door behind Denzel. "I hope they don't break my favourite chair. I'll be very angry if they do." She allowed herself one big dramatic sigh, then took Denzel's hand and started pulling him away from the door. "Come on, let's go play out before it rains."

Denzel hesitated briefly, still a little worried about leaving the house without any unoccupied adult supervision, but was quickly convinced staying behind would be much, much worse. One "Unf" sound from his sort-of-mom was scarring enough. He had no plans to stick around for sort-of-dad's echo.

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The End


End file.
